Well, I'm off to plunder the depths of the internet in hopes of learning more about ant colony differentiation. Adieu!
I'm back. Whew! Plundering the depths of the internet is exhausting.
I didn't manage to learn much about ant colony differentiation, but I did learn that:
1. A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once - just before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring (Wow!). 2. The study of ants is called Myrmecology. 3. In heraldry the two-tailed mermaid is shown full face with the ends of her tails held in each hand. Both single-tailed and double-tailed varieties symbolize eloquence. If she has her comb and mirror with her then it means vanity. 4. You can buy cheap bathroom vanities from some site called vanities.pronto.com. 5. If you mispell "pronto" while googling with safesearch turned off, the results are um... interesting. 6. Adult chat tends to focus on certain subjects. And "LilMissHotty69" is actually a guy from Peoria, IL named Bob who is into fishing and fixing up GTOs. Who knew?
Maybe plundering the depths of the internet is not the best way to learn about an esoteric subject when hopped up on caffeine.
I wonder how long it would take for the geographically isolated colonies (who share the same mega-colony ancestry) to drift enough that they lose their association with the parent mega-colony, and cease to treat other sub-colonies as friends.
How much variation in the cuticle hydrocarbons is acceptable? Are there specific 'marker' hydrocarbons that help differentiate between colonies? Genetically, is it a matter of different intron expression, or is it variation within a single intron? How many base pairs are involved if that's the case?
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have coffee this late.
Well, I'm off to plunder the depths of the internet in hopes of learning more about ant colony differentiation. Adieu!
Regulation was/is not the problem in and of itself. The problem is the relative regulation between different states. California's low supply of energy would not be such a problem if equivalent regulation existed in neighboring states.
It's a shame that a state that forced energy companies to internalize some of these costs was punished by the market due to the laws of other states... this is a failure of the free market (punishing companies for internalizing costs, even when internalizing those costs is best for society).
Something tells me that Hillary would NOT have wanted Bill to be fertile when they were in the White House... I don't think raising another crotch potato would have fit in with her career plans.
I'm sure if there were "severe" chromosomal abnormalities we would have noticed by now.
We have noticed. It is one of the reasons that multiple eggs are implanted, since so few of them are viable.
This is related to why we have so many multiple births from IVF -- sometimes 2 or more of the implanted eggs are viable.
Also note that IVF is done primarily when people have trouble conceiving normally, so incidence of abnormality should be high anyway... perhaps these abnormalities are part of the infertility issues that brought the patients to the fertility specialist in the first place.
Someone I know very well has tried IVF twice... out of all the eggs that it was tried with (I think 6 or 8 each time), only one egg was viable... and that one miscarried during week 5.
It's really not surprising to anyone who's been through it or has had frank discussions with someone who has.
Yes, but the headline "Daily Ejaculation Helps Improve Fertility" would not help convince my wife to have sex with me. It would instead encourage her to send me to the bathroom with the SI Swimsuit issue.
That is no good.
I would prefer the headline to stay as it is, or perhaps to be changed to "Daily Receipt of Fellatio Helps Improve Fertility".
That's one company. Globally there is a much larger backlog.
Furthermore, it's very disingenuous to compare a commercial large-scale energy source with a localized energy source. Retail costs of solar production are not an apt comparison.
Finally, you need to understand that your electricity is heavily subsidized if you live near a nuke plant. Nuke plant power costs would be around 18 cents per kWH for new plants in the US (and that's a conservative estimate; costs to build plants are skyrocketing, all current projects in Europe are WAY over budget and it gets worse every year). Solar farms in good locations consistently produce power at 22-25 cents per kWH. Note this include materials, construction, maintenance, etc.
Yes, there's a cost gap. But that gap is closing.
Also, in checking my numbers, I came across this article from earlier today about the skyrocketing costs of nuclear power. It mentions estimated prices of 12 - 20 cents per kWh. My figure of 18 cents is the Keystone Center's midrange estimate.
Reality: Solar power's only economical use right now is for remote sensors and in locations where the power grid cannot reasonably be extended and delivering fuel is impractical.
What version of reality do you live in?
Solar power is economical for large-scale deployments. That's why Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing has a $52 million backlog.
Oh, damn it. It appears I've fed the troll.
But, you know, keep on fighting the good fight against environmental responsibility. Future generations will thank you for it!
Commercial products are __far__ cheaper and far easier to assess the bugs, including "birdies". (If you've ever used a spectrum analyser you why there called birdies.
I've never used a spectrum analyser, so I'm going to assume it's because they drop verbs from transmissions.
Sure, it can all be done with a DSP based radio, but someone's gotta pay for the Intellectual Property to make them work.
Isn't that the point?
Then our government can mandate that first responders need to have these units in order to receive DHS funding, and every municipality will cough up the funds (it's for the children!).
That's how business works, my friend. You lean on your friends in high places to 'do a good thing' which coincidentally just happens to align with your interests. Everyone wins!
I'm feeling pretty cynical right now, but you just *know* that someone in the DHS had lunch/cocktails/a game of golf with someone from Motorola or EF Johnson or one of their proxies.
You aren't saving the environment by driving out business. The president cited California as an example of good energy policy. A lot of power consumed in California comes from neighboring states that don't have such strict regulations. The government of California is broke. They may not be able to make payroll next month. Is that where we want America to go? Is that our future model?
Are you seriously attributing the budgetary woes of California solely to environmental regulations?
Seriously?
I think that you, as an employee of a company that is closing its doors, are an example of the perfect target of the corporatists who can construct an environmental bogeyman in order to get you on their side.
I'm not trying to belittle you, honestly energy prices are a big issue in manufacturing. But the cost of regulatory compliance is a small factor in the price of electricity -- far more influential is the issue of intentional undersupply of electricity by the deregulated power industry in order to strong-arm the government into increasing their profits by rolling back environmental regulations. The power companies were profitable, and could build profitable plants under the regulations of this decade. But they felt they could make *more* money if they strong-armed the government into rolling back the regulations. So all California suffers from chronic undersupply, and resultant high prices, of electricity.
It is not environmental regulations tha cost your company its livelihood. It was the greed of other companies.
Before I go off on a tangent, let me just write my main point: please do not allow yourself to be blinded by a single bogeyman put in front of you. There are many reasons why California is having problems, and many reasons why companies fail. Allowing yourself to believe it's as simple as environmental regulations is simple-minded. And before you dismiss this out of hand, look at CA's healthcare costs. Look at the healthcare costs of employers in CA. Now look at the economic impact of poor air quality related illnesses, and the cost to the state (and to businesses) of paying all those medical bills.
One other thing regarding environmental regulations. Do you believe it is just for a society to allow companies to knowingly pollute in a manner that directly harms people, without that company being held accountable for it?
Bullets are lead*, and graphite is an excellent lubricant.
Gee thanks budyd. That is so not true!
Sorry for the tpyoes, I'm psoting this from the emergnecy room on my balckberry... the doctors said it'll be a three hour operation to remove the pencils from my wife.
Can someone please explain why we're talking about charging companies more to do their work when we're already dealing with 10% unemployment and signs that it will still take a while to fully recover?
Yes, I can explain.
As time passes, both the negative impacts of GCC and the cost to reduce our contribution to GCC will go up. We can suffer now, or suffer more later.
And the excuse not to act now because of the economic downturn will get drawn out and exaggerated. And when that excuse is played out, there will be another excuse to delay action. Procrastination is not a good idea.
And as for the wording of your question, it's loaded. Why don't we rephrase it to load it the other direction:
Can someone please explain why we're talking about allowing companies to negatively impact people when people are already suffering through 10% unemployment and there are signs that it will take a while for employment to recover?
We all need to tighten our belts, and delaying action could prove to be prohibitively expensive. Yes, the timing could be better (for example, during the boom of the 90s), but the will to act was not present, and the elected "leadership" was too happy playing kiss-me smack-me with corporate interests. Right now may be the last time we have leadership willing to take action for some time... so we act now.
15 days vacation plus 6 sick days plus 2 personal days plus 10.5 national holidays.
There are upsides to the job balancing out the time required to complete the work (and downtime during the day helps mitigate the long hours). Otherwise I wouldn't have accepted the position:)
That's got nothing to do with the elasticity of demand for automotive fuel (which relates to the short-term).
Elasticity of demand refers to the relative change in demand in response to a change in price. The reason it's inelastic is because the majority of driving is not elective driving... people commute to work no matter the price of gas in the short-term.
What you're talking about is something completely different... and while you are correct, it becomes less and less true as the cost of fuel increases due to supply issues.
This is what happened in the 80s (after the oil crisis). This is what happened in the past few years due to the recent runup in fuel prices.
The simple truth is that price of oil is becoming more and more affected by scarcity of supply. This pressure on price will, in time, have a higher impact on price than the demand curve (due to inelasticity of demand).
Which removes the additional incentive to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle (and low fuel efficiency has a societal cost that gas-guzzler drivers should have to internalize).
(1) Try living closer to your work. That long commute is more draining than you realize.
Assume you need 8 hours of sleep a night. Working a 12-hour shift, you are using three quarters of your free waking hours commuting. This leaves you one hour for eating, exercising, and anything else you want to do.
So probably you're not getting enough sleep...which means you are more stressed, which also leads to weight gain. Add in the lack of exercise, and your cortisol levels must be getting pretty high. So not only do you have little free time, you are gaining weight, and you are slowly reducing your life expectancy.
My suggestion is to move or find a new job. Seriously.
I did the long hours + long commute routine for years. I can't believe how much better I felt, and how much healthier I was, when I moved and got a new job with a reasonable commute and slightly fewer hours (50-55 instead of 60+). That's even though I was hardcore about ensuring I got 30 mins of aerobic exercise 5 days a week when I had the long commute & hours.
Of course, then I started having kids, so any time savings I had are out the door, and I've packed quite a few pounds back on due to lack of exercise.
But seriously, something's got to give with your schedule. You can give up your health, your commute, or your job. Pick one.
I thought it was a Nanu flying vehicle, which would be large and egg-shapped, and capable of interplanetary flight (at least one-way from the planet Ork). Last I heard there were issues with the landing sequence, though. Not sure if there's a RC, or if they're working on another public beta.
There are commercial helicopter-design UAVs weighing 15g that achieve that... about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
So this would be competitive with that in terms of speed.
Given that there are natural flapping-wing "designs" that achieve 25 M/s at a weight of 2.5 g (some hummingbirds), there's no reason why we shouldn't set a goal of 10 M/s at 10 g.
Yes, I did read the article... and I understand what DARPA is interested in getting out of a small UAV that can hover. What I don't understand is why a normal helicopter design couldn't suit all of these needs better and cheaper.
Because a helicopter design is not as easily mistaken for a flying insect?
Because helicopter designs are fundamentally flawed at a small scale due to the physics of vortexes? And that eventually they will want the design to be even smaller?
And , most importnntly, because the secret aliens who have infiltrated the ranks of our future enemies find it easier to detect abnormal air flow from a helicopter design than from a flapping wing design.
"The goals of the NAV program -- namely to develop an approximately 10 gram aircraft that can hover for extended periods, can fly at forward speeds up to 10 meters per second, can withstand 2.5 meter per second wind gusts, can operate inside buildings, and have up to a kilometer command and control range -- will stretch our understanding of flight at these small sizes and require novel technology development." 2.5 m/s wind gust == ~5.6 mph wind gust. For outdoor use, that seems like a pretty low threshold -- so the requirement that it "can operate inside buildings" seems to be the more of the primary use.
That's a tall order, though, for something under 10 grams. I wonder if it's necessary to have an active system to respond to wind gusts and auto-stabilize the flight, or if it's be possible via aerodynamics alone.
"The goals of the NAV program -- namely to develop an approximately 10 gram aircraft that can hover for extended periods, can fly at forward speeds up to 10 meters per second, can withstand 2.5 meter per second wind gusts, can operate inside buildings, and have up to a kilometer command and control range -- will stretch our understanding of flight at these small sizes and require novel technology development." 2.5 m/s wind gust == ~5.6 mph wind gust. For outdoor use, that seems like a pretty low threshold -- so the requirement that it "can operate inside buildings" seems to be the more of the primary use.
That's a tall order, though, for something under 10 grams. I wonder if it's necessary to have an active system to respond to wind gusts and auto-stabilize the flight, or if it's be possible via aerodynamics alone.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm back. Whew! Plundering the depths of the internet is exhausting.
I didn't manage to learn much about ant colony differentiation, but I did learn that:
1. A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once - just before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring (Wow!).
2. The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
3. In heraldry the two-tailed mermaid is shown full face with the ends of her tails held in each hand. Both single-tailed and double-tailed varieties symbolize eloquence. If she has her comb and mirror with her then it means vanity.
4. You can buy cheap bathroom vanities from some site called vanities.pronto.com.
5. If you mispell "pronto" while googling with safesearch turned off, the results are um... interesting.
6. Adult chat tends to focus on certain subjects. And "LilMissHotty69" is actually a guy from Peoria, IL named Bob who is into fishing and fixing up GTOs. Who knew?
Maybe plundering the depths of the internet is not the best way to learn about an esoteric subject when hopped up on caffeine.
I wonder how long it would take for the geographically isolated colonies (who share the same mega-colony ancestry) to drift enough that they lose their association with the parent mega-colony, and cease to treat other sub-colonies as friends.
How much variation in the cuticle hydrocarbons is acceptable? Are there specific 'marker' hydrocarbons that help differentiate between colonies? Genetically, is it a matter of different intron expression, or is it variation within a single intron? How many base pairs are involved if that's the case?
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have coffee this late.
Well, I'm off to plunder the depths of the internet in hopes of learning more about ant colony differentiation. Adieu!
Regulation was/is not the problem in and of itself. The problem is the relative regulation between different states. California's low supply of energy would not be such a problem if equivalent regulation existed in neighboring states.
It's a shame that a state that forced energy companies to internalize some of these costs was punished by the market due to the laws of other states... this is a failure of the free market (punishing companies for internalizing costs, even when internalizing those costs is best for society).
[WJC voice] Ah feel your... tongue [/WJC voice]
Something tells me that Hillary would NOT have wanted Bill to be fertile when they were in the White House... I don't think raising another crotch potato would have fit in with her career plans.
We have noticed. It is one of the reasons that multiple eggs are implanted, since so few of them are viable.
This is related to why we have so many multiple births from IVF -- sometimes 2 or more of the implanted eggs are viable.
Also note that IVF is done primarily when people have trouble conceiving normally, so incidence of abnormality should be high anyway... perhaps these abnormalities are part of the infertility issues that brought the patients to the fertility specialist in the first place.
Someone I know very well has tried IVF twice... out of all the eggs that it was tried with (I think 6 or 8 each time), only one egg was viable... and that one miscarried during week 5.
It's really not surprising to anyone who's been through it or has had frank discussions with someone who has.
Yes, but the headline "Daily Ejaculation Helps Improve Fertility" would not help convince my wife to have sex with me. It would instead encourage her to send me to the bathroom with the SI Swimsuit issue.
That is no good.
I would prefer the headline to stay as it is, or perhaps to be changed to "Daily Receipt of Fellatio Helps Improve Fertility".
But I think that might be too much to ask for.
That's one company. Globally there is a much larger backlog.
Furthermore, it's very disingenuous to compare a commercial large-scale energy source with a localized energy source. Retail costs of solar production are not an apt comparison.
Finally, you need to understand that your electricity is heavily subsidized if you live near a nuke plant. Nuke plant power costs would be around 18 cents per kWH for new plants in the US (and that's a conservative estimate; costs to build plants are skyrocketing, all current projects in Europe are WAY over budget and it gets worse every year). Solar farms in good locations consistently produce power at 22-25 cents per kWH. Note this include materials, construction, maintenance, etc.
Yes, there's a cost gap. But that gap is closing.
Also, in checking my numbers, I came across this article from earlier today about the skyrocketing costs of nuclear power. It mentions estimated prices of 12 - 20 cents per kWh. My figure of 18 cents is the Keystone Center's midrange estimate.
What version of reality do you live in?
Solar power is economical for large-scale deployments. That's why Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing has a $52 million backlog.
Oh, damn it. It appears I've fed the troll.
But, you know, keep on fighting the good fight against environmental responsibility. Future generations will thank you for it!
I've never used a spectrum analyser, so I'm going to assume it's because they drop verbs from transmissions.
Isn't that the point?
Then our government can mandate that first responders need to have these units in order to receive DHS funding, and every municipality will cough up the funds (it's for the children!).
That's how business works, my friend. You lean on your friends in high places to 'do a good thing' which coincidentally just happens to align with your interests. Everyone wins!
I'm feeling pretty cynical right now, but you just *know* that someone in the DHS had lunch/cocktails/a game of golf with someone from Motorola or EF Johnson or one of their proxies.
And I think that's a woefully low estimate.
Judging by the anonymous coward posts here on slashdot, I'd say it'd be more in the range of 90-95%.
Oh, I see... 6% high or drunk. Obviously you were discounting the 84 to 89% who are high and drunk.
Are you seriously attributing the budgetary woes of California solely to environmental regulations?
Seriously?
I think that you, as an employee of a company that is closing its doors, are an example of the perfect target of the corporatists who can construct an environmental bogeyman in order to get you on their side.
I'm not trying to belittle you, honestly energy prices are a big issue in manufacturing. But the cost of regulatory compliance is a small factor in the price of electricity -- far more influential is the issue of intentional undersupply of electricity by the deregulated power industry in order to strong-arm the government into increasing their profits by rolling back environmental regulations. The power companies were profitable, and could build profitable plants under the regulations of this decade. But they felt they could make *more* money if they strong-armed the government into rolling back the regulations. So all California suffers from chronic undersupply, and resultant high prices, of electricity.
It is not environmental regulations tha cost your company its livelihood. It was the greed of other companies.
Before I go off on a tangent, let me just write my main point: please do not allow yourself to be blinded by a single bogeyman put in front of you. There are many reasons why California is having problems, and many reasons why companies fail. Allowing yourself to believe it's as simple as environmental regulations is simple-minded. And before you dismiss this out of hand, look at CA's healthcare costs. Look at the healthcare costs of employers in CA. Now look at the economic impact of poor air quality related illnesses, and the cost to the state (and to businesses) of paying all those medical bills.
One other thing regarding environmental regulations. Do you believe it is just for a society to allow companies to knowingly pollute in a manner that directly harms people, without that company being held accountable for it?
Gee thanks budyd. That is so not true!
Sorry for the tpyoes, I'm psoting this from the emergnecy room on my balckberry... the doctors said it'll be a three hour operation to remove the pencils from my wife.
Yes, I can explain.
As time passes, both the negative impacts of GCC and the cost to reduce our contribution to GCC will go up. We can suffer now, or suffer more later.
And the excuse not to act now because of the economic downturn will get drawn out and exaggerated. And when that excuse is played out, there will be another excuse to delay action. Procrastination is not a good idea.
And as for the wording of your question, it's loaded. Why don't we rephrase it to load it the other direction:
We all need to tighten our belts, and delaying action could prove to be prohibitively expensive. Yes, the timing could be better (for example, during the boom of the 90s), but the will to act was not present, and the elected "leadership" was too happy playing kiss-me smack-me with corporate interests. Right now may be the last time we have leadership willing to take action for some time... so we act now.
15 days vacation plus 6 sick days plus 2 personal days plus 10.5 national holidays.
:)
There are upsides to the job balancing out the time required to complete the work (and downtime during the day helps mitigate the long hours). Otherwise I wouldn't have accepted the position
That's got nothing to do with the elasticity of demand for automotive fuel (which relates to the short-term).
Elasticity of demand refers to the relative change in demand in response to a change in price. The reason it's inelastic is because the majority of driving is not elective driving... people commute to work no matter the price of gas in the short-term.
What you're talking about is something completely different... and while you are correct, it becomes less and less true as the cost of fuel increases due to supply issues.
This is what happened in the 80s (after the oil crisis). This is what happened in the past few years due to the recent runup in fuel prices.
The simple truth is that price of oil is becoming more and more affected by scarcity of supply. This pressure on price will, in time, have a higher impact on price than the demand curve (due to inelasticity of demand).
Which removes the additional incentive to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle (and low fuel efficiency has a societal cost that gas-guzzler drivers should have to internalize).
(1) Try living closer to your work. That long commute is more draining than you realize.
Assume you need 8 hours of sleep a night. Working a 12-hour shift, you are using three quarters of your free waking hours commuting. This leaves you one hour for eating, exercising, and anything else you want to do.
So probably you're not getting enough sleep...which means you are more stressed, which also leads to weight gain. Add in the lack of exercise, and your cortisol levels must be getting pretty high. So not only do you have little free time, you are gaining weight, and you are slowly reducing your life expectancy.
My suggestion is to move or find a new job. Seriously.
I did the long hours + long commute routine for years. I can't believe how much better I felt, and how much healthier I was, when I moved and got a new job with a reasonable commute and slightly fewer hours (50-55 instead of 60+). That's even though I was hardcore about ensuring I got 30 mins of aerobic exercise 5 days a week when I had the long commute & hours.
Of course, then I started having kids, so any time savings I had are out the door, and I've packed quite a few pounds back on due to lack of exercise.
But seriously, something's got to give with your schedule. You can give up your health, your commute, or your job. Pick one.
What's up with my stupid typos today?
That should be 15 M/s at a weight of 2.5 g.
I thought it was a Nanu flying vehicle, which would be large and egg-shapped, and capable of interplanetary flight (at least one-way from the planet Ork). Last I heard there were issues with the landing sequence, though. Not sure if there's a RC, or if they're working on another public beta.
I could have misread, though.
Turkey vulture -- so somewhat Asian and somewhat European.
But definitely unladen.
There are commercial helicopter-design UAVs weighing 15g that achieve that... about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
So this would be competitive with that in terms of speed.
Given that there are natural flapping-wing "designs" that achieve 25 M/s at a weight of 2.5 g (some hummingbirds), there's no reason why we shouldn't set a goal of 10 M/s at 10 g.
Because a helicopter design is not as easily mistaken for a flying insect?
Because helicopter designs are fundamentally flawed at a small scale due to the physics of vortexes? And that eventually they will want the design to be even smaller?
And , most importnntly, because the secret aliens who have infiltrated the ranks of our future enemies find it easier to detect abnormal air flow from a helicopter design than from a flapping wing design.
FTA, emphasis mine:
That's a tall order, though, for something under 10 grams. I wonder if it's necessary to have an active system to respond to wind gusts and auto-stabilize the flight, or if it's be possible via aerodynamics alone.